Documentos de Académico
Documentos de Profesional
Documentos de Cultura
Artículo
Discusión
Leer
Editar
Ver historial
Herramientas
0:02
Orígenes
Un diccionario chino, el Erya del siglo iii a. C., es el diccionario monolingüe más antiguo que se
conserva; y algunas fuentes citan el Shizhoupian (probablemente compilado en algún
momento entre el 700 a. C. y el 200 a. C., posiblemente antes) como un "diccionario", aunque
los estudiosos modernos lo consideran un compendio caligráfico de caracteres chinos de
bronces de la dinastía Zhou. Filitas de Cos (fl. siglo iv a. C.) escribió un vocabulario pionero
Palabras desordenadas (Ἄτακτοι γλῶσσαι, Átaktoi glôssai) que explicaba el significado de
palabras raras homéricas y otras literarias, palabras de dialectos locales y términos técnicos.4
El primer diccionario sánscrito, el Amarakośa, fue escrito por Amarasimha hacia el siglo iv de
nuestra era. Escrito en verso, recoge unas 10.000 palabras. Según el Nihon Shoki, el primer
diccionario japonés fue el desaparecido glosario de caracteres chinos Niina, del año 682. El
diccionario japonés más antiguo que existe, el Tenrei Banshō Meigi del año 835, era también
un glosario de chino escrito. En el Frahang-i Pahlavig se enumeran los heterogramas arameos
junto con su traducción al persa medio y su transcripción fonética en el alfabeto pazend. Un
diccionario irlandés del siglo ix, Sanas Cormaic, contiene etimologías y explicaciones de más de
1.400 palabras irlandesas. En el siglo xii, el erudito turco-karakhaní Mahmud Kashgari terminó
su obra "Divan-u Lügat'it Türk", un diccionario sobre los dialectos turcos, pero especialmente
el turco karakhaní. Su obra contiene entre 7.500 y 8.000 palabras y fue escrita para enseñar a
los musulmanes no turcos, especialmente a los árabes abasíes, la lengua turca.5 Al-
Zamakhshari escribió un pequeño diccionario árabe llamado "Muḳaddimetü'l-edeb" para el
gobernante turco-khwarazm Atsiz.6 En el siglo xiv se terminó el Codex Cumanicus, que sirvió
de diccionario sobre la lengua cumanoturca. En el Egipto mameluco, Ebû Hayyân el-Endelüsî
terminó su obra "Kitâbü'l-İdrâk li-lisâni'l-Etrâk", un diccionario sobre las lenguas kipchak y
turcomanas habladas en Egipto y el Levante.7 Un diccionario llamado "Bahşayiş Lügati", escrito
en turco antiguo de Anatolia, sirvió también como diccionario entre el turco oghuz, el árabe y
el persa. Pero no está claro quién escribió el diccionario ni en qué siglo se publicó
exactamente. Fue escrito en el antiguo turco de Anatolia del periodo seliúcida y no del periodo
otomano tardomedieval.8 En la India, hacia 1320, Amir Khusro compiló el Khaliq-e-bari, que
trataba principalmente de palabras en indostaní y persa.9
Los diccionarios árabes se elaboraron entre los siglos VIII y XIV de nuestra era, organizando las
palabras por orden de rima (por la última sílaba), por orden alfabético de los radicales o según
el orden alfabético de la primera letra (el sistema utilizado en los diccionarios de lenguas
europeas modernas). El sistema moderno se utilizaba sobre todo en los diccionarios
especializados, como los de términos del Corán y los hadices, mientras que la mayoría de los
diccionarios de uso general, como el Lisan al-Árabe (siglo xiii, que sigue siendo el diccionario de
árabe a gran escala más conocido) y el al-Qamus al-Muhit (siglo xiv) enumeraban las palabras
según el orden alfabético de los radicales. El Qamus al-Muhit es el primer diccionario práctico
en árabe que incluye solo palabras y sus definiciones, eliminando los ejemplos de apoyo
utilizados en diccionarios como el Lisan y el Oxford English Dictionary.10
Tipos
En ellos se recogen términos que se consideran correctos según la norma. Para la lengua
española, el referente es el Diccionario de la lengua española (DLE), de la Real Academia
Española, elaborado conjuntamente por las veintitrés de Academias de la Asociación de
Academias de la Lengua Española.11 El Diccionario del estudiante es la obra de referencia para
los estudiantes de secundaria y bachillerato.12
De uso práctico
Recogen acepciones en las palabras que no son reconocidas por el órgano competente (como
la Real Academia Española) pero qué, sin embargo, se usan ampliamente en la sociedad. Es el
caso, por ejemplo, del Diccionario de uso del español (DUE), de María Moliner; del Diccionario
Clave, de Concepción Maldonado; y del Diccionario de uso del español actual (DEA), de Manuel
Seco, Olimpia Andrés y Gabino Ramos.
Monolingües
En ellos se explica brevemente el significado de las palabras de una determinada lengua. Estos
diccionarios no contienen, a diferencia de los bilingües, definiciones que incluyen equivalentes
en otras lenguas.
Bilingües
Diccionarios que consisten en traducir una palabra de un idioma a otro, por ejemplo, del
español al inglés y viceversa. Generalmente se usan cuando se estudia un idioma diferente al
idioma materno o cuando se busca una palabra que se escribe o habla en otro idioma y que no
se conoce en el idioma materno.
De aprendizaje
Son los diccionarios en los que se facilita la vida y la información sobre el origen de las palabras
de una determinada lengua. Quizá el diccionario etimológico más prestigioso de la lengua
inglesa es el Oxford English Dictionary. Quizá el diccionario etimológico más célebre (aunque
ya no es el más actualizado) de la lengua española es el Tesoro de la lengua castellana o
española (1611), obra de Sebastián de Covarrubias y Orozco, que no es solo diccionario
etimológico, sino que aporta muchísimos datos históricos de la lengua utilizada en su época.
De sinónimos y antónimos
Especializado
Inverso o de rimas
De gramática
Tesauro
Los tesauros son obras en las que se relacionan numerosas palabras que guardan una relación
más o menos directa con la palabra u objeto de consulta. No son, pues, diccionarios de
sinónimos, ya que estos últimos incluyen únicamente palabras con un significado similar y
equivalente.
Se localizan las palabras según su asociación a una idea. Se parte de ideas generales y se va
concretando hasta llegar a una lista de palabras entre las que se encontrará la buscada. Se
diferencia del tesauro en que en aquel las palabras se relacionan con palabras con alguna
relación, mientras que en este las palabras se agrupan con ideas. Por ejemplo, para localizar el
nombre de un cierto color verde que no se recuerda se busca en el grupo "naturaleza"; dentro
de este, en el grupo "luz"; dentro de este, en el grupo "color", luego en el grupo "verde" y ahí,
entre otros, se encuentra "glauco", un tono específico de verde.
Es una especie de tesauro. Sus características hacen que se presenten en formato electrónico
(DVD o página web). Se llama conceptual porque el acceso se realiza por medio de conceptos,
no solo por medio de palabras. Por ejemplo, demasiado cansada para es un concepto
multipalabra. Esta característica hace que la accesibilidad sea fácil para el usuario común.
Visual o de imágenes
Enciclopédico
El diccionario contiene información más específica y detallada y abarca temas mucho más
amplios como, por ejemplo, acerca de países, continentes, océanos, personas famosas;
también puede mencionar cómo se escribe cierta palabra en otros idiomas. No debe
confundirse un diccionario enciclopédico con una enciclopedia. El primero tiene información
breve sobre el significado de un término. Una enciclopedia proporciona mucha información
relacionada con cada entrada o artículo, no solo una definición. Wikipedia es ejemplo de un
tipo específico de enciclopedia: la enciclopedia en línea que pueden modificar los propios
usuarios.
Los diccionarios son tradicionalmente libros. Sin embargo, también existen diccionarios en
soporte digital, como CD y DVD, y se pueden consultar algunos en Internet. También se han
popularizado los diccionarios electrónicos portátiles, como una aplicación dentro de un
teléfono o consistentes en un pequeño dispositivo independiente con pantalla y teclado, que
suele contener varios diccionarios en su interior.
Partes
Entrada: División inicial del artículo, escrita como lema en letra negrita y que presenta la
unidad léxica buscada. Se compone de dos partes: vocablo (o la mejor versión que represente
la forma de palabras), y las instrucciones o indicaciones de uso.
Pronunciación: Método previo al habla, para gesticular la lengua, y formar con la lectura
adquirida, las palabras habladas, dependiendo del idioma del país nativo.
Categoría gramatical: Cada una de las clases de palabras establecidas en función de sus
propiedades gramaticales. Las categorías fundamentales son el artículo, el sustantivo, el
adjetivo, el pronombre, el verbo, el adverbio, la preposición, la conjunción y la interjección.
Acepción: Cada uno de los significados de una palabra o expresión de lengua, según los
contextos o sentidos en muestra, y contienen distinto entendimiento al término o artículo
encontrado. Si no están numeradas en negritas, están separadas por una doble barra.
Locuciones o frases hechas: Entorno o grupo de palabras que forman una unidad léxica legible
y estable, con significado propio, en los que está incluida la palabra que se explica.
Indicaciones sobre su uso: Construcción de normas lingüísticas que indican al usuario cómo
entender y expresar el contenido, para el buen uso de las palabras o partes internas y evitar
confusiones, preferentemente no corregidas por falta de aprendizaje. A su vez, muestran
ejemplos escritos en cursiva, para concretar el significado bajo un contexto descrito, si el
artículo encontrado aún es ilegible.
El primer diccionario europeo dedicado íntegramente a una lengua viva y que ofrece una
definición para cada entrada fue el Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española de Sebastián de
Covarrubias publicado en 161114. La lengua italiana fue la primera en tener un diccionario
monolingüe escrito por una academia lingüística: el Vocabolario dell'Accademia della Crusca,
cuya primera edición apareció en Florencia en 1612. En francés, no fue hasta César-Pierre
Richelet que apareció el primer diccionario monolingüe en francés (1680). La lengua inglesa,
aunque dotada de varios diccionarios, tendrá que esperar hasta 1755 para dotarse de un
diccionario exhaustivo de la lengua inglesa con el Dictionary of the English Language, publicado
el 15 de abril de 1755 por Samuel Johnson.
Dictionary
Article
Talk
Read
View source
View history
Tools
Page semi-protected
A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often
arranged alphabetically (or by consonantal root for Semitic languages or radical and stroke for
logographic languages), which may include information on definitions, usage, etymologies,
pronunciations, translation, etc.[1][2][3] It is a lexicographical reference that shows inter-
relationships among the data.[4]
There is also a contrast between prescriptive or descriptive dictionaries; the former reflect
what is seen as correct use of the language while the latter reflect recorded actual use. Stylistic
indications (e.g. "informal" or "vulgar") in many modern dictionaries are also considered by
some to be less than objectively descriptive.[7]
The first recorded dictionaries date back to Sumerian times around 2300 BCE, in the form of
bilingual dictionaries, and the oldest surviving monolingual dictionaries are Chinese
dictionaries c. 3rd century BCE. The first purely English alphabetical dictionary was A Table
Alphabeticall, written in 1604, and monolingual dictionaries in other languages also began
appearing in Europe at around this time. The systematic study of dictionaries as objects of
scientific interest arose as a 20th-century enterprise, called lexicography, and largely initiated
by Ladislav Zgusta.[6] The birth of the new discipline was not without controversy, with the
practical dictionary-makers being sometimes accused by others of having an "astonishing" lack
of method and critical-self reflection.[8]
History
Catalan-Latin dictionary from the year 1696 with more than 1000 pages. Gazophylacium
Dictionary.
The oldest known dictionaries were cuneiform tablets with bilingual Sumerian–Akkadian
wordlists, discovered in Ebla (modern Syria) and dated to roughly 2300 BCE, the time of the
Akkadian Empire.[9][10][11] The early 2nd millennium BCE Urra=hubullu glossary is the
canonical Babylonian version of such bilingual Sumerian wordlists. A Chinese dictionary, the c.
3rd century BCE Erya, is the earliest surviving monolingual dictionary; and some sources cite
the Shizhoupian (probably compiled sometime between 700 BCE to 200 BCE, possibly earlier)
as a "dictionary", although modern scholarship considers it a calligraphic compendium of
Chinese characters from Zhou dynasty bronzes.[citation needed] Philitas of Cos (fl. 4th century
BCE) wrote a pioneering vocabulary Disorderly Words (Ἄτακτοι γλῶσσαι, Átaktoi glôssai) which
explained the meanings of rare Homeric and other literary words, words from local dialects,
and technical terms.[12] Apollonius the Sophist (fl. 1st century CE) wrote the oldest surviving
Homeric lexicon.[10] The first Sanskrit dictionary, the Amarakośa, was written by Amarasimha
c. 4th century CE. Written in verse, it listed around 10,000 words. According to the Nihon
Shoki, the first Japanese dictionary was the long-lost 682 CE Niina glossary of Chinese
characters. Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi's 8th century Kitab al-'Ayn is considered the first
dictionary of Arabic.[13] The oldest existing Japanese dictionary, the c. 835 CE Tenrei Banshō
Meigi, was also a glossary of written Chinese. In Frahang-i Pahlavig, Aramaic heterograms are
listed together with their translation in the Middle Persian language and phonetic transcription
in the Pazend alphabet. A 9th-century CE Irish dictionary, Sanas Cormaic, contained
etymologies and explanations of over 1,400 Irish words. In the 12th century, The Karakhanid-
Turkic scholar Mahmud Kashgari finished his work "Divan-u Lügat'it Türk", a dictionary about
the Turkic dialects, but especially Karakhanid Turkic. His work contains about 7500 to 8000
words and it was written to teach non Turkic Muslims, especially the Abbasid Arabs, the Turkic
language.[14] Al-Zamakhshari wrote a small Arabic dictionary called "Muḳaddimetü'l-edeb" for
the Turkic-Khwarazm ruler Atsiz.[15] In the 14th century, the Codex Cumanicus was finished
and it served as a dictionary about the Cuman-Turkic language. While in Mamluk Egypt, Ebû
Hayyân el-Endelüsî finished his work "Kitâbü'l-İdrâk li-lisâni'l-Etrâk", a dictionary about the
Kipchak and Turcoman languages spoken in Egypt and the Levant.[16] A dictionary called
"Bahşayiş Lügati", which is written in old Anatolian Turkish, served also as a dictionary between
Oghuz Turkish, Arabic and Persian. But it is not clear who wrote the dictionary or in which
century exactly it was published. It was written in old Anatolian Turkish from the Seljuk period
and not the late medieval Ottoman period.[17] In India around 1320, Amir Khusro compiled
the Khaliq-e-bari, which mainly dealt with Hindustani and Persian words.[18]
Arabic dictionaries were compiled between the 8th and 14th centuries CE, organizing words in
rhyme order (by the last syllable), by alphabetical order of the radicals, or according to the
alphabetical order of the first letter (the system used in modern European language
dictionaries). The modern system was mainly used in specialist dictionaries, such as those of
terms from the Qur'an and hadith, while most general use dictionaries, such as the Lisan al-
`Arab (13th century, still the best-known large-scale dictionary of Arabic) and al-Qamus al-
Muhit (14th century) listed words in the alphabetical order of the radicals. The Qamus al-
Muhit is the first handy dictionary in Arabic, which includes only words and their definitions,
eliminating the supporting examples used in such dictionaries as the Lisan and the Oxford
English Dictionary.[19]
In medieval Europe, glossaries with equivalents for Latin words in vernacular or simpler Latin
were in use (e.g. the Leiden Glossary). The Catholicon (1287) by Johannes Balbus, a large
grammatical work with an alphabetical lexicon, was widely adopted. It served as the basis for
several bilingual dictionaries and was one of the earliest books (in 1460) to be printed. In 1502
Ambrogio Calepino's Dictionarium was published, originally a monolingual Latin dictionary,
which over the course of the 16th century was enlarged to become a multilingual glossary. In
1532 Robert Estienne published the Thesaurus linguae latinae and in 1572 his son Henri
Estienne published the Thesaurus linguae graecae, which served up to the 19th century as the
basis of Greek lexicography. The first monolingual Spanish dictionary written was Sebastián
Covarrubias's Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, published in 1611 in Madrid, Spain.
[20] In 1612 the first edition of the Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca, for Italian, was
published. It served as the model for similar works in French and English. In 1690 in Rotterdam
was published, posthumously, the Dictionnaire Universel by Antoine Furetière for French. In
1694 appeared the first edition of the Dictionnaire de l'Académie française (still published,
with the ninth edition not complete as of 2021). Between 1712 and 1721 was published the
Vocabulario portughez e latino written by Raphael Bluteau. The Royal Spanish Academy
published the first edition of the Diccionario de la lengua española (still published, with a new
edition about every decade) in 1780; their Diccionario de Autoridades, which included quotes
taken from literary works, was published in 1726. The Totius Latinitatis lexicon by Egidio
Forcellini was firstly published in 1777; it has formed the basis of all similar works that have
since been published.
The first edition of A Greek-English Lexicon by Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott appeared
in 1843; this work remained the basic dictionary of Greek until the end of the 20th century.
And in 1858 was published the first volume of the Deutsches Wörterbuch by the Brothers
Grimm; the work was completed in 1961. Between 1861 and 1874 was published the
Dizionario della lingua italiana by Niccolò Tommaseo. Between 1862 and 1874 was published
the six volumes of A magyar nyelv szótára (Dictionary of Hungarian Language) by Gergely
Czuczor and János Fogarasi. Émile Littré published the Dictionnaire de la langue française
between 1863 and 1872. In the same year 1863 appeared the first volume of the
Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal which was completed in 1998. Also in 1863 Vladimir
Ivanovich Dahl published the Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language. The
Duden dictionary dates back to 1880, and is currently the prescriptive source for the spelling of
German. The decision to start work on the Svenska Akademiens ordbok was taken in 1787.[21]
The earliest dictionaries in the English language were glossaries of French, Spanish or Latin
words along with their definitions in English. The word "dictionary" was invented by an
Englishman called John of Garland in 1220 – he had written a book Dictionarius to help with
Latin "diction".[22] An early non-alphabetical list of 8000 English words was the Elementarie,
created by Richard Mulcaster in 1582.[23][24]
The first purely English alphabetical dictionary was A Table Alphabeticall, written by English
schoolteacher Robert Cawdrey in 1604.[2][3] The only surviving copy is found at the Bodleian
Library in Oxford. This dictionary, and the many imitators which followed it, was seen as
unreliable and nowhere near definitive. Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield was still
lamenting in 1754, 150 years after Cawdrey's publication, that it is "a sort of disgrace to our
nation, that hitherto we have had no… standard of our language; our dictionaries at present
being more properly what our neighbors the Dutch and the Germans call theirs, word-books,
than dictionaries in the superior sense of that title."[25]
In 1616, John Bullokar described the history of the dictionary with his "English Expositor".
Glossographia by Thomas Blount, published in 1656, contains more than 10,000 words along
with their etymologies or histories. Edward Phillips wrote another dictionary in 1658, entitled
"The New World of English Words: Or a General Dictionary" which boldly plagiarized Blount's
work, and the two criticised each other. This created more interest in the dictionaries. John
Wilkins' 1668 essay on philosophical language contains a list of 11,500 words with careful
distinctions, compiled by William Lloyd.[26] Elisha Coles published his "English Dictionary" in
1676.
It was not until Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language (1755) that a more
reliable English dictionary was produced.[3] Many people today mistakenly believe that
Johnson wrote the first English dictionary: a testimony to this legacy.[2][27] By this stage,
dictionaries had evolved to contain textual references for most words, and were arranged
alphabetically, rather than by topic (a previously popular form of arrangement, which meant
all animals would be grouped together, etc.). Johnson's masterwork could be judged as the
first to bring all these elements together, creating the first "modern" dictionary.[27]
Johnson's dictionary remained the English-language standard for over 150 years, until the
Oxford University Press began writing and releasing the Oxford English Dictionary in short
fascicles from 1884 onwards.[3][citation needed] It took nearly 50 years to complete this huge
work, and they finally released the complete OED in twelve volumes in 1928.[citation needed]
One of the main contributors to this modern dictionary was an ex-army surgeon, William
Chester Minor, a convicted murderer who was confined to an asylum for the criminally insane.
[28]
The OED remains the most comprehensive and trusted English language dictionary to this day,
with revisions and updates added by a dedicated team every three months.
Webster completed his dictionary during his year abroad in 1825 in Paris, France, and at the
University of Cambridge. His book contained seventy thousand words, of which twelve
thousand had never appeared in a published dictionary before. As a spelling reformer,
Webster believed that English spelling rules were unnecessarily complex, so his dictionary
introduced spellings that became American English, replacing "colour" with "color",
substituting "wagon" for "waggon", and printing "center" instead of "centre". He also added
American words, like "skunk" and "squash", which did not appear in British dictionaries. At the
age of seventy, Webster published his dictionary in 1828; it sold 2500 copies. In 1840, the
second edition was published in two volumes. Webster's dictionary was acquired by G & C
Merriam Co. in 1843, after his death, and has since been published in many revised editions.
Merriam-Webster was acquired by Encyclopedia Britannica in 1964.
Controversy over the lack of usage advice in the 1961 Webster's Third New International
Dictionary spurred publication of the 1969 The American Heritage Dictionary of the English
Language, the first dictionary to use corpus linguistics.
Types
In a general dictionary, each word may have multiple meanings. Some dictionaries include
each separate meaning in the order of most common usage while others list definitions in
historical order, with the oldest usage first.[29]
In many languages, words can appear in many different forms, but only the undeclined or
unconjugated form appears as the headword in most dictionaries. Dictionaries are most
commonly found in the form of a book, but some newer dictionaries, like StarDict and the New
Oxford American Dictionary are dictionary software running on PDAs or computers. There are
also many online dictionaries accessible via the Internet.
Specialized dictionaries
Another variant is the glossary, an alphabetical list of defined terms in a specialized field, such
as medicine (medical dictionary).
Defining dictionaries
The simplest dictionary, a defining dictionary, provides a core glossary of the simplest
meanings of the simplest concepts. From these, other concepts can be explained and defined,
in particular for those who are first learning a language. In English, the commercial defining
dictionaries typically include only one or two meanings of under 2000 words. With these, the
rest of English, and even the 4000 most common English idioms and metaphors, can be
defined.
Large 20th-century dictionaries such as the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and Webster's
Third are descriptive, and attempt to describe the actual use of words. Most dictionaries of
English now apply the descriptive method to a word's definition, and then, outside of the
definition itself, provide information alerting readers to attitudes which may influence their
choices on words often considered vulgar, offensive, erroneous, or easily confused.[32]
Merriam-Webster is subtle, only adding italicized notations such as, sometimes offensive or
stand (nonstandard). American Heritage goes further, discussing issues separately in numerous
"usage notes." Encarta provides similar notes, but is more prescriptive, offering warnings and
admonitions against the use of certain words considered by many to be offensive or illiterate,
such as, "an offensive term for..." or "a taboo term meaning...".
Because of the widespread use of dictionaries in schools, and their acceptance by many as
language authorities, their treatment of the language does affect usage to some degree, with
even the most descriptive dictionaries providing conservative continuity. In the long run,
however, the meanings of words in English are primarily determined by usage, and the
language is being changed and created every day.[33] As Jorge Luis Borges says in the prologue
to "El otro, el mismo": "It is often forgotten that (dictionaries) are artificial repositories, put
together well after the languages they define. The roots of language are irrational and of a
magical nature."
Sometimes the same dictionary can be descriptive in some domains and prescriptive in others.
For example, according to Ghil'ad Zuckermann, the Oxford English-Hebrew Dictionary is "at
war with itself": whereas its coverage (lexical items) and glosses (definitions) are descriptive
and colloquial, its vocalization is prescriptive. This internal conflict results in absurd sentences
such as hi taharóg otí kshetiré me asíti lamkhonít (she'll tear me apart when she sees what I've
done to the car). Whereas hi taharóg otí, literally 'she will kill me', is colloquial, me (a variant of
ma 'what') is archaic, resulting in a combination that is unutterable in real life.[34]
Historical dictionaries
Other types
Bilingual dictionary
Electronic dictionary
Encyclopedic dictionary
By sound
Rhyming dictionary
Visual dictionary
Satirical dictionary
Phonetic dictionary
Pronunciation
In many languages, such as the English language, the pronunciation of some words is not
consistently apparent from their spelling. In these languages, dictionaries usually provide the
pronunciation. For example, the definition for the word dictionary might be followed by the
International Phonetic Alphabet spelling /ˈdɪkʃənəri/ (in British English) or /ˈdɪkʃənɛri/ (in
American English). American English dictionaries often use their own pronunciation respelling
systems with diacritics, for example dictionary is respelled as "dĭk′shə-nĕr′ē" in the American
Heritage Dictionary.[37] The IPA is more commonly used within the British Commonwealth
countries. Yet others use their own pronunciation respelling systems without diacritics: for
example, dictionary may be respelled as DIK-shə-nerr-ee. Some online or electronic
dictionaries provide audio recordings of words being spoken.
Examples
Century Dictionary
Chambers Dictionary
Macmillan Dictionary
Webster's New World Dictionary (especially the college edition, used as the official desk
dictionary of many American press journalists)
Arabic dictionaries
Chinese dictionaries
French dictionaries
German dictionaries
Japanese dictionaries
Polish dictionaries
Online dictionaries
The age of the Internet brought online dictionaries to the desktop and, more recently, to the
smart phone. David Skinner in 2013 noted that "Among the top ten lookups on Merriam-
Webster Online at this moment are holistic, pragmatic, caveat, esoteric and bourgeois.
Teaching users about words they don't already know has been, historically, an aim of
lexicography, and modern dictionaries do this well."[38]
There exist a number of websites which operate as online dictionaries, usually with a
specialized focus. Some of them have exclusively user driven content, often consisting of
neologisms. Some of the more notable examples are given in List of online dictionaries and
Category:Online dictionaries.
See also